


Happenstance

by intrepidheart



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bottom Sam, M/M, Top Dean, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 21:36:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7071355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrepidheart/pseuds/intrepidheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean’s never been really good at that whole “accomplishment” thing. Drifting is the one thing he really knows how to do, and a trip after his latest failure—college—with just him, his car, and the wide open road is exactly what he needs. Running into a boy with legs longer than the California coastline was definitely not on the agenda, but hey, it’s not like Dean has anywhere else to be. </p><p>When the trip becomes more of a series of detours, Dean finds himself more and more drawn to the young boy who seems to be carrying more baggage than Dean originally thought. A secret revealed threatens to shatter everything they’ve built together in this short time; will they make it through or crash and burn like every other thing Dean has ever touched?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happenstance

Dean knew he was fucked from the moment he saw those legs.

This was supposed to be easy, some kind of escape from the never-ending list of failures trailing out of his back pocket, yeah, that one there, the one that’s about fifteen miles long. College is the newest addition to the list, just like Dean had known it would be the moment he got that acceptance letter.

Stanford. What a joke.

The only reason he even made it through admissions was because of Lisa’s dad on the board, but even that hadn’t lasted either. Maybe it was because Dean had started to sleep his way through the cheerleading squad while they were together, but still.

Either way, this? This is a road trip, for God’s sake. How can anything with Dean, his car and the highway all wrapped up into one go wrong? It should be scientifically impossible, unable to happen due to the laws of nature and all that shit.

At least that’s what he thought until he saw those goddamn legs.

He’d been on the I-15 for just over an hour, fresh off the California interstate without a weight on his shoulders, as if every mile he put under his car as he headed towards the Nevada state border was one step closer to freedom. Once he got out of this damned state, he could leave it all behind, just another stone added to the pile of things he’s never followed through with. Just gotta get out of fuckin’ California.

The moment came and went too fast for Dean, even when he eased back into his seat and slowed down marginally to watch the “Now leaving California!” sign whip by on the right side of the road, but still he smiled. He may have been sweating in the unusually warm April sun that was pouring through his window, sticking his legs to his jeans and dampening the seat that’s molded to his body, and he may be getting concerningly low on gas, but he made it out alive. Dean threw his middle finger out the window, his final goodbye to the life he was never meant to lead. It’s been real, it’s been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun.

Nevada stretched before Dean like a golden wasteland, red rocks and tufts of brittle greenery decorating the roadside as he thundered on with nothing but adrenaline in his veins and the highway ahead of him. He was high on the freedom that always bleeds into him after doing something like this, leaving his teeth clenched in a smile too wide for his face and his eyes seeking a new adventure, conquest, _anything_ that would keep him floating two feet off the ground with no strings attached.

Unfortunately, the ping warning him that his journey would be extremely short-lived unless he found a gas station pretty soon disturbed his thoughts and dragged him back down to reality. Swearing under his breath, he pushed his foot to the floor and let the deep thrum of Hammett’s guitar guide him until he saw the Shell sign drawing nearer to him by the second, by far the tallest thing around for miles.

Pulling into the lot, Dean wheeled the car around one of the rows of pumps to bring her tank level with the one of his choosing. His window had been open during his ride, wind clawing at his elbows as it flew past, fast enough that it felt cool. Just then, stepping out of the car was like walking into a wall of flames, dry heat seeping into his lungs and caking them with the dirt that rose from his feet as he scuffed his way to the hose. He’d been smart enough to ditch his jacket in the backseat when he’d still been on the interstate, thank God. With the nozzle shoved deep into the throat of the tank, Dean took a moment to put his back against the trunk and take a look around, one hand wrapped around the handle to keep the gas flowing.

That’s when Dean first saw him.

Legs, legs, legs for miles leaning against the wall beside the door of the convenience store, an eternity of tight denim following the curve of calves and thick thighs until it disappeared under a simple black t-shirt with a loose collar. A black bag was at his feet, bulging and round.

Thank God for the sun being behind Dean’s head because that meant it consequently was shining directly on the guy who was stretched out like a cat, arms crossed above his head to cast a shadow over his eyes. From where Dean was standing, he could see that the guy’s eyes were closed, which made him feel better because the creepiness level with which Dean was staring was rocketing sky-high.

The handle then gave a kick under Dean’s palm, telling him the tank was full. Blinking rapidly, Dean had finally managed to tear his eyes away from the guy to set the hose back into the pump and reach into the car to grab his wallet from the seat. He’d tucked it into his back pocket and made his way to the door to pay inside even though he can’t remember the last time he didn’t just shove a card into the pump and get on his way.

Now here he is, picking through the chip aisle indecisively and trying to figure out why he can’t seem to stop blushing even though he’s the only person in the store besides the goddamn clerk. His eyes keep pulling up to look out the glass front of the store to where he can see the side of the guy’s body, the sharp angle of his elbow where it’s jutting away from his body as he shades his eyes and the patch of sweat just under his arm darkening the material of his shirt. It makes Dean wonder how long he’s been out there, if he’s been waiting for someone. Maybe a tow? But he didn’t see another car when he pulled into the station, so scratch that.

The clearing of a throat makes Dean twitch, tearing his gaze away to land on the cashier, who’s watching him with narrowed eyes. Dean grins back just because he can and forces his feet to the refrigerated section. He mindlessly tucks three water bottles under his arm along with a Mountain Dew before trekking to the counter. Opening his arms, everything spills out and fills the air with the creak of plastic and slosh of liquid inside. Staring blankly at Dean, the clerk slowly picks up one of the bottles and scans it three times before setting it aside.

“This everything for you?” the man says in a drawl so grating that Dean feels his jaw ache in sympathy.

Reaching down, Dean blindly grabs a square rectangle and slaps it down in front of him. Twix. Nice one.

Rolling his eyes, the clerk scans that too, then the Mountain Dew before bagging it all and telling Dean the total damage of both the gas and the goods. Nodding his thanks, Dean fishes the Twix out of the bag, rips open the corner with his teeth and bites into it as he hip-checks the door to leave. His first impulse is to look to his right, to find Legs again, and… what? Ask what he’s doing out here in Bumfuck, Nowhere? Offer him help? Could he be any fucking creepier?

Dean looks anyway.

The black bag is there, but Legs is gone.

Ignoring the weird lurch that eats deep into the pit of his stomach, Dean shakes his head a bit and steps off the curb, looking down as he shoves his hand in the too-small front pocket of his jeans to get out his keys. When he looks up again, he stumbles to a stop.

The guy is touching his car. Correction: not touching— _draping_ himself over it, like he has some kind of right to run his goddamn hands along the roof. If Dean’s being honest, the guy’s just reverently following the sleek lines of the car with his fingertips barely touching the paint, but look, this vehicle has been the one constant in this topsy-turvy fuckery of a life so sue him for being a little over-protective. And holy shit if Legs doesn’t look up just then to meet Dean’s eyes, and Dean finally sees he isn’t just a guy, he’s a fucking _kid_ , goddamn eighteen at most and he has dimples. Of course.

“Is she yours?” The boy’s question causes Dean’s mouth to snap shut from where it’s apparently been hanging open. He’s grinning, bright like he and Dean are old friends, like Dean’s more than just a somebody.

“You see anyone else around here who would look half as good sittin’ in that driver’s seat?” Okay, so maybe Dean’s tone is a little sharp on the edge but it’s just leftover from the shock of seeing someone other than him within a five-foot radius of his car without his permission. Besides, his reply made Legs tilt his head to the side and drag his eyes up and down the length of Dean’s body slow enough that he got goosebumps, so it’s not like he can complain.

“Definitely not.” The boy’s mouth twists, looking thoughtful. Dean feels his entire body get _toohot_ and clears his throat, reminding his body how to put one foot in front of the other until he reaches the driver’s door where Legs is standing. To his credit, the boy doesn’t flinch away, just stays where he is, meets Dean’s stare head-on and pats the roof gently. “She’s beautiful.”

Dean chews the corner of the inside of his mouth as he spins his keys around his pointer finger before catching them in his palm, the bite of the ridges into his skin making his gaze fall to the white teeth peeking out from where this kid is playing with his bottom lip, squeezing it and pushing it out like a bad habit as he finally hops away from the car to lean against the gas pump, giving Dean space. Kid’s smart.

“Yeah, she is, isn’t she?” Dean says finally, taking another bite of his Twix. The chocolate is melting in the heat, sliding slickly along his tongue instead of being more solid like Dean was hoping for. Legs smiles again despite his bottom lip being pinched between his thumb and forefinger, turning his gaze back to the sleek black of car in front of him, his eyes devouring every inch.

Dean squeezes the keys in his hand a few more times, taking in Legs a little more thoroughly now that he’s closer. He can see the kid’s collarbones peeking through the loose circle of fabric around his neck, two sharp wings branching out towards equally bony shoulders. He’s more lean than skinny, enough muscle on him to make him a bit intimidating once his height is taken into account, which is an inch or two taller than Dean if you can believe it. Hair dark and floppy, falling over his forehead to brush the twin black fans of his eyelashes that are half-shuttered over irises that can’t seem to decide on a set color of green. His face is soft but angled, drawing out a prominent jawline and cheekbones from golden brown skin. He may look young but has the air of someone much older, even if he doesn’t portray it in the way he’s gnawing at his thumbnail and bending down to get a look at the taillights of Dean’s car.

Before he can really think about it, Dean’s hand is in the plastic bag hanging off his other wrist and pulling out one of the water bottles.

“Hey.”

The kid’s head jerks up, thumb still sitting half in his mouth.

“Catch.”

He snatches the water bottle out of the air one-handed, leaving Dean to duck through the open window of the driver’s door to toss the rest of the bag onto the passenger seat in order to hide the impressed look his face decided to pull out without consulting him.

“Thanks, man.” The guy sounds genuinely confused, as if baffled that someone would notice that he’s out here alone in the goddamn desert on a hot day without a single cloud in the sky and maybe have a heart enough to be nice.

“Sure,” Dean says, his hand resting on the handle as he watches the kid screw off the cap and finish half the bottle in one long pull. “You got a name, short stack?” Well where the fuck did that come from?

Legs wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and lets out a huff, making Dean wonder how long it’s been since this kid had a drink, let alone ate. After a moment’s deliberation accompanied by much head-tilting and semi-narrowed eyes, the kid relents, meets Dean’s stare and holds out his hand.

“Tim.”

“Tim,” Dean repeats slowly, taking his hand to give it a shake. Never expected that name to come out, that’s for damn sure. “I’m Dean.”

“Well, Dean, thanks again for the water and for letting me drool over your ride.” Tim’s stepping back and away, circling around the other side of the car with wistful eyes before shooting Dean another smile. “Appreciate it.”

“Hey, uh…” Dean folds his hands together on the hood of the car, ignoring the scorch of hot metal on his forearms as he squints at the boy who looks ready to go back to his wall and stand there all over again. “Is everything okay? Do you, y’know, like, have someone around or—”

“Oh,” Tim laughs, rubs his wrist against his forehead to catch some of the sweat that’s clinging to his bangs. “I’ll be fine.”

Dean blinks at him. Tim shifts now, looking away uncomfortably to stare down the road.

“Are you waiting for someone?” Dean tries again.

“Um,” Tim says before taking another drink of water, a smaller gulp this time.

“Dude—”

“Hey, look,” Tim laughs again as he takes a step back, but it sounds a little bit strangled, maybe panic if the deep flush creeping up his collar is anything to go by. “I just thought your car was nice, that’s all. I didn’t mean to bother you or anything, alright?”

“You didn’t bother me, man,” Dean protests, his body pushing forward into the car as if he could turn transparent and walk through it to get just a bit closer to this kid who once looked confident but now looks like he’d rather be hiding under a rock. “I’m just trying to make sure you’re not just stranded out in the middle of a goddamn desert with nowhere to go, you get me?”

Tim just stands there, staring at Dean like he’s grown three extra limbs.

“You, uh—” Dean taps his forefinger on the roof for a couple of beats before flattening his palm to the metal. “You need me to give you a lift somewhere?”

Tim’s eyes grow comically round, tracing the Impala up and down her length before meeting Dean’s stare again. “In her?”

“No, on my goddamn unicycle. What’d you think?”

Embarrassment colors Tim’s cheeks, and Dean thinks he looks good like that, right before the word _jailbait_ flashes to the forefront of his mind and he has to pinch the skin of his wrist, _be good_.

“Only if you need a ride, though, man,” Dean says. “I don’t want to step on any toes if your folks are here or something. I’m just sayin’ it’s open.”

“They’re not here,” Tim jumps in quickly, eyes downcast. “I’m…” Biting his lip, he looks up again. “You wouldn’t mind?”

Something like electricity sings through Dean’s veins and down into the pit of his stomach, whirling into a tornado that leaves his hands feeling numb, and isn’t that just a bit fucked up? “Hop in, my dude.”

Tim is over by the store scooping his bag onto his shoulder and back to the car in no more than five strides before he’s standing in front of the passenger door. Dean creaks his own open, about to slide in when he notices Tim hesitating.

“I don’t want to throw off your trip or anything,” Tim says quietly.

“That’s the best part, man.” Dean grins at him, watches as Tim’s eyes widen fractionally because of it. “I don’t have anywhere to be.”

By the time he gets into the driver’s seat, Tim is already in the car beside him with his bag at his feet, hands skimming the warm leather with something akin to awe gracing his features. Laughing to himself, Dean turns the engine over and settles in to guide the Impala out of the lot one-handed as he uses the other to twist the cap off the Mountain Dew that Tim handed him. For the first time in forever, Dean turns the music down below eardrum-rupturing level so he can hear Tim talk if he wants. At the moment, he’s staring out the window as if waiting to watch the world fly by.

“So. Tim,” Dean starts, taking a swig of his drink. “Where to?”

Tim doesn’t miss a beat. “Grand Canyon.”

“Grand Canyon,” Dean repeats, pulling back onto the I-15 N. He watches the slow spread of a smile cross the boy’s face out of the corner of his eye as he puts his foot down and the Impala roars, drowning out the music as they shoot down the pavement towards the shimmering line of the horizon. “Why the hell not?”

::..::

As it turns out, that’s not where they actually stop.

Twenty minutes into the ride, a sign about the Hoover Dam pops up and Tim damn near slaps his face to the window to watch it go by. It’s definitely a detour from where they’re supposed to be going, which is north, but the kid looked so excited, biting at his bottom lip like he was trying his hardest to hold back from asking.

Dean gave him a break, not saying anything until he turned onto the 146 E and saw Tim’s head swivel to look at him instead of out the window.

“You don’t mind if we make a pit-stop, right?” Dean says casually, draping his arm over the wheel so his wrist can keep it steady. “Figured we could see some cool shit along the way too. That okay with you?”

Tim nods so enthusiastically that Dean starts to worry about him pulling a muscle.

It’s half past five by the time they pull into the parking lot at the visitor’s center, and judging by the fact that there are pretty much no cars left, Dean decides they may be shit out of luck. It takes Tim bounding up to the front doors to read the hours for the dam tours for them to realize they’re definitely shit out of luck; last tours wrapped up over an hour ago.

“Don’t worry about it, man,” Dean says as Tim slumps down in his seat on their way back out. “We can stick around Boulder City for the night and come back in the morning.”

“…We?” Dean hears Tim say, his tone tinged with incredulity.

Oh, shit and fuck.

“W-Well, not us, I mean—” Dean stumbles over his tongue, which has become nothing more than a useless muscle between his teeth for all the good it’s doing him right now. “You—I can take you to the canyon, y’know, you can meet up with whoever, I mean, if you are meeting anyone. I’m not trying to—Jesus, that sounded fucked up.”

“Don’t hurt yourself.”

Dean shoots a half-hearted glare at the kid to his right, who has an oddly pleased look on his face, as if watching Dean flounder like an idiot was the best thing to happen all day.

“I’m just saying…” Dean sighs. “I don’t really know what your deal is, and it’s not like I do this as a hobby or anything so I just… I don’t want to throw a wrench in your plans but I also don’t even know if you have ‘em, y’know?” Clearing his throat, Dean keeps his eyes firmly on the road ahead of him, focusing on the deep orange painting the asphalt from the sinking sun. “But if you don’t really have anywhere to go, then it’s not like I’m gonna just leave you somewhere. So if you need a place, then you let me know and we’ll figure it out, find a motel or something.”

Tim’s quiet, scratching his fingernail gently on his knee cap as he stares down at his lap instead of at Dean’s darting glances.

“I don’t have a lot of money, so you should… you can just drop me off at the next gas station, okay?”

Dean’s head whips around so fast that a muscle spasms. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me? I’m not gonna just _ditch_ you, man, what’d I just say?”

Tim’s brow furrows, confused. “Well it’s not like I’m gonna be able to pay you for my half of the motel, so it’s easier—”

“Easier to just dump you on the side of the road?” Dean scoffs, and turns back to the road where the lights of the town they were headed towards is glowing. “Don’t worry about it, okay? I can cover food and a night in a motel. No big deal.”

“It is a big deal!” Tim turns to face Dean, one arm along the back of the seat, inches from Dean’s shoulder. “How the hell am I gonna pay you back for that? I can’t ask that of you, Dean! You barely know me!”

“Yeah fuckin’ right, I barely know you!” Dean snaps back. “But I still saw you back at that station and figured it couldn’t hurt to help out a bit if you needed it, alright? Listen, you don’t have to pay for anything, I’ll cover it, end of.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Tim presses, leaning forward. Dean can smell him now, stale sweat and worn-out peppermint gum and sunshine, of all fucking things. Dean can smell him and it’s suddenly overwhelming, the proximity to this guy, _boy_ , who had to fold his legs six ways to Sunday in order to fit them in the footwell and who has a sunburn across his nose and the tops of his cheeks and who is decidedly one of the most stubborn bastards Dean’s ever stumbled across.

Gritting his teeth, Dean steps harder on the gas, blowing through a yellow light on the outskirts of town to get them there faster, get him out of this tight space behind the wheel that once seemed so vast when it was just him and his baby.

“Yeah, you know what? I do. Unfortunately, you got in a car with someone who actually has a sense of morality, so for now you’re stuck with me.”

A beat of silence, and then Dean feels Tim’s huff blow across his cheek before he flops back into his seat, arms crossed. Robert Plant croons into the tension-filled air, doing nothing for once to soothe the bristles that have burrowed beneath Dean’s skin.

Once they’ve pulled into the nearest motel parking lot and Dean’s hand is on his door, about to push it open to go get their rooms, Tim speaks again.

“Sam.”

Dean pauses, wracking his brain to try and figure out if he missed something in the last ten minutes of dead silence they’d been sitting in before turning to look at Tim. “What?”

“Sam,” he repeats, fingers twisting together in his lap. “My name, _real_ name. It’s Sam.”

“Sam,” Dean finds himself echoing back, the name for this kid finally feeling right when it leaves his tongue. Can’t blame the guy for playing it safe. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Sam says, finally meeting his eyes.

With that, Dean grunts and steps out of the car, swinging the door shut behind him. The bell to the motel office jingles above his head when he nudges his way in, finding it just as humid as it is outside.

“Two rooms, please. Singles.”

The man behind the counter, slightly overweight with a thick gold chain banding his neck, leans forward over the counter and shifts to the side, looking around Dean. Dean stares at him before turning his head to follow the guy’s line of sight, right out to where Sam is unfolding himself from the passenger side of his car, his bag slung over his shoulder.

“You sure you want two?” The man’s chortle sounds congested and smarmy, making Dean’s skin crawl.

Nostrils flaring, Dean turns back at the attendant and forces out a smile that he’s sure makes him look like a serial killer.

“Two rooms,” Dean repeats slowly, hearing the jingle of the door bell. “Singles.”

The man eyes Sam, who is now hovering by Dean’s side, and shrugs as if he wasn’t trying to imply that Dean had dragged this kid here to break a bed and leave some dents in the wall. Anger seethes up Dean’s throat, desperate to claw out of his mouth and say something, degrade this man who thought he’d ever do such a thing. Instead, Dean sucks in a deep breath through his nose to calm it. Is he mad at this stranger, who has worked here for God knows how long and probably seen this exact same scene hundreds of times over with the outcome that he has now come to expect, or at himself for having those thoughts the first time he saw Sam stretched out against that wall?

Keys rattle as the man paws through to get two for rooms that are next to each other before slapping them down on the counter. Dean fishes out his wallet and nudges his card over for the man to swipe through his terminal. He nearly jumps out of his skin when he feels hot fingers curl around his elbow, the briefest of touches.

“Thank you,” Sam says softly, leaning in close enough that Dean feels goosebumps rocket down his arms when Sam’s breath caresses his ear.

“Yeah,” Dean mutters back, mentally telling his arm that it should pull away. Damn thing doesn’t listen, just sits there and soaks in the feeling of the length of Sam’s fingers before they fall away on their own accord. Traitor.

Dean scoops up the keys and herds Sam out the door first, instinctively using his body to shield the younger boy from the leer of the man behind them. Dirty old fuck.

After grabbing his bag from the trunk, Dean leads them down the sidewalk to their rooms, 101 for him and 102 for Sam. Handing Sam his key, Dean gets to unlocking his.

“You wanna go get something to eat then turn in?” Dean offers, pushing the door open with the toe of his boot. “You’re probably pretty whacked.”

Sam’s gnawing at his bottom lip, staring down at his fingers that are turning the room key over and over instead of putting it into the lock. Dean sighs through his nose, bracing his shoulder against the doorjamb.

“C’mon, Sammy. It’s just dinner. You aren’t makin’ me go bankrupt because I’m buying you a friggin’ burger. Quit worrying about it, okay?”

Sam lifts his head, his face flickering through a riot of emotions until he finally lands on annoyed. “Don’t call me Sammy.”

Dean grins and walks into his room, leaving his door wide open so Sam can hear him when he calls back, “Okay, Sammy.”

There’s a muffled thump that Dean can hear through the thin wall where the head of his bed is and then a slam before Sam comes stomping into Dean’s room. “You’re annoying, you know that?”

“I’m also buying you food in fifteen minutes.”

Sam sits on Dean’s bed and kicks at the carpet, shoes scuffing back and forth. “...Yeah. Thanks for that.”

“Dude, it’s cool. Don’t worry about it.” Dean finishes unloading his toiletries into the bathroom and comes out to zip his bag back up, making sure all his valuables are in his hands or pockets before making a clicking noise with his tongue, jerking his thumb towards the door. “Let’s skedaddle.”

They find a diner not even five minutes away, all neon signs that burn the red and blue letters into the backs of Dean’s eyelids so it’s all he sees when he blinks. Most of the red vinyl booths are empty when they walk in so they have their pick. Sam chooses the one in the far corner, tucked away from the door. When the waitress comes by, smacking bright pink bubblegum between equally pink lips, Dean grins and snaps his menu open, falling into his old habit of flirty banter for the next five minutes until he hears an odd cough.

“Yeah, I don’t mean to interrupt this fascinating mating ritual or anything, but can I get an ice water and the house salad when you have a chance?” Sam says rather monotonously, his menu folded shut in front of him on the table. Dean’s mouth drops open, heat flooding up his neck as he hears the waitress go “Um, uh” before Sam slides out of the booth, patting the table twice as he says, “I’m gonna run to the bathroom,” and then is strolling his way across the restaurant, hands in his pockets and whistling tunelessly.

Clenching his jaw, Dean turns back to the girl, who is scribbling on her notepad and looking decidedly less interested in getting back to their conversation from before. Cursing Sam out in his head, Dean glances at the menu and orders a bacon cheeseburger and fries then apologizes, “The kid’s probably just PMS’ing or somethin’,” and the girl snorts, snatching his menu away before saying, “Oh, great, you’re one of _those_ guys,” and flouncing away. Staring blankly after her, Dean wonders where he went so wrong.

By the time Sam slides back into his side of the booth, Dean has built a fortress out of the mini milk and cream cups on the table, complete with broken in half wooden stir sticks to act as turrets.

“You should send that to the MOMA,” Sam comments, wrapping his hands around the glass of water the waitress had dropped off while he’d still been in the bathroom.

“You should stop being a smartass,” Dean replies, adding a sugar packet on the top of one of his towers. It can be a fuckin’ umbrella or somethin’ for the people who work the rooftop.

“No can do.” Sam shrugs then proceeds to use his tongue to try and catch the thick white straw shoved in his cup, the thing sliding back and forth away from him, and all Dean can do is stop and watch. It seems like a mindless thing to do, just try and use your mouth to get the straw without using your hands, but Sam’s staring at him while he does it, flicking out slick pink tongue in little curls that never seem to be able to grab the damn thing. It’s fucking mesmerizing, is what it is, and Dean thinks he’s maybe lost feeling in his legs when Sam’s lips finally close around the straw to give it one long suck, hard enough that his cheeks hollow out. He’s still watching Dean.

“Right,” Dean croaks, completely forgetting what they were talking about beforehand. Sam tilts his head at him, looking way too innocent and oblivious as he takes another drink.

The arrival of food saves Dean from having to try and find something else to say. He crams the burger in his mouth before the waitress even finishes putting down his plate, which earns him two identical looks of poorly disguised revulsion. He couldn’t give less of a shit, just forces himself to chew and keep his eyes on his fries so they don’t drift up to watch the way Sam’s mouth closes around his fork.

He is so fucked.

::..::

The rest of the night went smoothly enough. Dean insisted Sam eat half of his burger and fries because there’s no damn way that the kid wasn’t starving and some pile of rabbit food won’t do jack shit for filling him up. Sam told him he was being annoying again, which Dean responded to by blowing a straw wrapper into his face.

They’re back at the motel now after stopping by the beer store so Dean could grab a couple of six packs, ignoring Sam’s raised brows when he came back out with them tucked under his arms. Sam’s sitting sideways on the armchair that’s near the window, fiddling with the tab on his half-empty can of beer, his long legs draping down so far that his toes are brushing the carpet while Dean’s lounging on the bed, flicking mindlessly through channels because he doesn’t know what he wants to watch but is too lazy to just pick one.

“Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah, Sammy?” Dean takes another pull from his beer, lets the alcohol fizz warmly down into his stomach and branch out to his arms.

“First of all, it’s Sam,” Sam huffs. Dean can see it from the corner of his eye. A little _plink_! fills the air when Sam finally twists off the tab. “Secondly… thanks.”

Dean throws the remote control at Sam, hitting him in the stomach. “Dude, if I hear you say ‘thank you’ one more time—”

“You didn’t let me finish telling you for what, you jerk!” Sam whips the remote back and it hits Dean’s shoulder bone with a crack, making him cuss and rub it with a pout. Sam just shakes his head and keeps going. “I was going to say thanks for not, y’know, prying or whatever.”

Dean digests this for a moment then takes another drink. “Sure, kid. ‘S not like I’m gonna hound you for shit you’re not willing to share.”

“I’m just saying,” Sam presses again. “Most people would. So just… yeah. Thanks.”

“As long as you’re not some serial killer hitchhiker, I’m good, dude.” Dean shrugs, sneaking a glance at Sam as he says it. He gets a wry smile in response.

“Damn. Guess the jig is up,” Sam drawls, getting to his feet. “I’ll go get my knives.”

Dean raises his can up. “Can I finish my beer, at least?”

Sam laughs then, throws his head back and lets out this bright thing into the air that Dean never imagined could leave his throat. He’s kind of frozen there staring at Sam but Sam doesn’t seem to notice, just shakes his head and helps himself to the other empty half of Dean’s bed. That is enough to snap him out of it.

“Hey!” Dean sqwaks. “You’ve got your own, get outta here!”

“Chair was hurting my back,” Sam grumbles, propping a pillow up behind him before leaning back with a sigh. “That’s better.”

Dean can feel Sam’s body heat pouring off him in waves, heating Dean’s entire right side despite the rattling air conditioner that’s doing its best to keep the room cool. It’s like a drug, turning Dean’s vision a little hazy and making his throat feel as dry as the desert outside. He clears his throat and shifts away a little, giving Sam a bit more room in case he wants to spread out a bit more or something. Being courteous, that’s all.

“Hey, wanna do a drinking game where we drink every time Scully rolls her eyes at Mulder?”

Dean snorts as the spooky intro music starts to play. “Well now you’re just trying to get me drunk.”

“Yeah,” Sam says casually. “Maybe.”

And doesn’t that shut Dean right up.

They finish both six packs—turns out they’d caught the beginning of an X-Files marathon—and by the time Dean tries to toss his last can into the now overflowing trash, he’s drunk enough for it to bounce off the window instead. Sam thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world, falls off the goddamn bed from laughing so hard. Dean thinks that Sam, this Sam, all sweaty and flushed and too giggly with clumsy fingers gripping the comforter as he tries to get to his feet, this Sam is some kind of wonderful. Not too soon after, Dean realizes he should really get the kid out of his room before he does something stupid.

“Alright, short stack. Time for bed,” Dean groans as he heaves himself upright, only stumbling once as he walks to the door.

“Booooooriiiiiiiing!” Sam hollers behind him. Judging by the ensuing crash Dean hears not a second later, Sam fell into the dresser. “Ow, fuck me, ow. Boring, Dean, you’re friggin’ boring! It’s not even one yet!”

Slumping against the door, Dean tilts his body towards the room again to see Sam shuffling forward, looking miffed.

“Got an early morning tomorrow, in case you forgot,” Dean informs him, one hand pawing at the doorknob until he gets a grip on it. “Got the Hooooover Dam.”

“Hooooover Dam,” Sam parrots, giggling like an idiot. Cute idiot. Really fuckin’ pretty sloshed _underage_ idiot, okay, Dean, open the fucking door.

“C’mon, out.” Dean pats the door and takes a step back, ready to open it but a hand has appeared by his head, palm flat on the wood, holding it shut. Dean stares at it for a moment, finds that it’s connected to an arm, whaddya know, then a boy. Boy who’s way too close, face leaning in, only inches away.

Dean’s frozen, can do nothing but watch the way Sam’s eyes drag all over his face before finally settling on his lips, can’t move away when Sam ducks forward and their noses brush against each other.

He can feel Sam’s breaths on his mouth, deep and even, and his lips part in response to let out his own shaky exhale. Their foreheads are touching now, not too hard, just a slight pressure reminding them both of this line Dean’s been trying so hard not to cross. It’s maddening to be this close and not just surge forward to find out what the backs of Sam’s teeth taste like.

There’s a moment where Dean thinks it’s going to happen, where Sam takes in a deep breath and his body shifts and all Dean can hear is that voice in the back of his head screaming _yes_. Then Dean feels the door bump into his shoulder. He blinks twice, tries to understand how that could happen when he hasn’t moved his hand, then takes notice of the heat wrapped around his fingers. Sam’s hand covering his.

“Should I still go?” Sam’s voice is sultry low, skimming down Dean’s spine like a waterfall. Oh, Christ. No. No, he shouldn’t.

“Yeah.” What the fuck, Dean? “Yeah, you should, uh… Yeah.”

“Okay,” Sam says, but he doesn’t sound mad or even annoyed. He’s smiling softly and moving out of Dean’s space, giving him room to finally breathe. “Night, Dean.”

“Um,” Dean says intelligently as he stumbles back from the door, giving Sam berth so he can open it fully. “Yeah. G’night.”

Sam gives him a wave and then the door is clicking shut. Sam’s gone and Dean suddenly becomes hyperaware of the painful tightness at the crotch of his pants.

“Fuck,” Dean spits, tripping over his feet on the way to the shower as he sheds his clothes as fast as humanly possible.

He’s under the spray in less than a minute, not even waiting for the water to warm before all but falling into the tub. Bowing his head, Dean props his forearms against the checkered tile wall, willing his body to calm down, for the cool water to work and stop his dick from aching where it’s curling up to meet his stomach. It doesn’t work. The alcohol’s made him warm all over and the memory of Sam’s breath on his lips sends shivers down Dean’s spine, and before he can stop to think about it, Dean’s got his hand on his dick, stripping it hard and fast with the quickly warming water slicking the way. Hips churning, Dean turns his face into the corner of his elbow, bites down on the soft flesh and groans at the white hot swirl deep in his belly, bites harder when just the right twist of his wrist sends fireworks shooting through his body as he comes hard, painting the wall with thick stripes.

Panting, he lets his hand fall away to rinse off in the stream of water before pulling his head back to bang it a few times on the shower wall. Fuck and shit and fuck.

Trying to ignore the roiling mass of guilt brewing in his stomach, Dean washes the rest of the day away with the bar soap provided, scrubbing until his skin is pink and squeaking. He dries off half-heartedly, barely manages to get into a pair of boxers before he’s flopping face-first on the bed and praying that he suffocates during the night. All he knows is that he had a pretty set idea about how this road trip was going to go and now he’s in a tailspin, the world tilting in all the wrong ways because of a boy with catwalk legs.

Dean’s last thought before slipping down into sleep is how long it’ll take for him to fuck this up too.

::..::

Dean wakes up with only a mild hangover and only a shitload of regret for his little shower episode compared to the truckload it had been last night. He makes himself busy so he can’t think about it, dresses and packs up quickly. He’s just putting his boots on when there’s a knock at the door. Sam’s there when he opens it, bag on his shoulder and a grin on his face.

“How ya feelin’, champ?”

Dean groans and turns away to finish getting his boots on.

“That bad, huh?”

“I’m not hungover,” Dean grumbles. “It’s just too early for you to be smiling. Or talking, really.”

“I’ll be outta your hair soon enough.” The way Sam says it is so matter-of-fact, just how it’s gonna be, makes Dean’s fingers pause on his laces.

It’s true, though. Grand Canyon’s only a few hours from here, so even with the tour they’re planning at the Hoover Dam today, there’s no way this is gonna last any longer than the next twelve hours, max. For some reason, that makes Dean feel a bit sick, his stomach revolting with a twist.

“Just meant I need some coffee,” Dean forces out, giving his laces a particularly nasty yank before tying them off. “I’ll meet you at the car.”

He sees Sam shrug before walking out, leaving Dean alone with his bag and the train of thoughts running through his mind. Holding his head in his hands, Dean stares at the floor and tries to figure out just what it is about this kid that makes everything feel so natural, from light bickering to banter where Sam can give it as well as he can take it. He wonders if that’s why he’s having such a hard time wrapping his head around the idea of watching Sam slide out of the passenger seat, out of his life. He wonders if maybe he’s going fucking crazy because since when did Dean Winchester give more than one flying fuck about anyone other than himself? What is it about this kid that makes Dean want to help so much, protect him and make sure he’s okay and has food in his stomach and a smile on his face?

Scrubbing his hands on his cheeks, Dean lets his fingers dig into his eyelids and rubs hard, pressing them in until he sees swirls of color.

“Fuck,” he says to himself, then stands. Grabbing his bag and his keys, Dean leaves the room, locking it behind him.

Sam’s already at the car, leaning against the passenger side with his arms crossed and his head tilting back to catch the sun. Long, long legs, also crossed but at the ankle, clad in those tight goddamn jeans again. Dean lets out a short whistle to get Sam’s attention and holds up his room key as he walks forward, about to ask if Sam still has his, but Sam’s already nodding and jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the main office. Squinting, Dean can see the same guy in there from last night, leering at Sam from behind the counter like some kind of voyeur.

The anger is back, fuelling Dean’s strides until he’s pushing the office door open again, the bell jingling. He smacks the room key down in front of the man and pastes on his biggest asshole smirk as he leans forward.

“Turns out we didn’t need the second room after all,” Dean purrs, taking relish in the spasm of shock crossing the clerk’s face right before spinning on his heel and waltzing the fuck outta there.

He slides into the car at the same time Sam does, both of their doors creaking shut in unison, and Dean wishes he didn’t like that sound as much as he does.

“Coffee?” Sam pipes up, already trying to rearrange his legs into a more comfortable position in the footwell.

“Coffee,” Dean agrees, and then they’re off.

::..::

Dean knew that the Hoover Dam was big but _damn_ is that thing huge.

The tour took an hour, weaving them through the enormous structure with a chipper group leader who spouted off historical facts and important engineer names that went in one ear and right out the other for Dean. Sam ate it up though, listened with rapt attention with his hands in his pockets and his eyes wide, nodding at all the right places as the guide spoke. They picked their way through the visitor’s center afterwards and Dean bought Sam one of those dumb tourist keychains just because he could. Sam had just stared at it for about two minutes after Dean gave it to him before asking if they could go back to the car, where he proceeded to clip the keychain right on one of the zippers of his backpack, smiling down at it proudly once it was all said and done. Dean tried to pretend that his insides weren’t lighting up like the Fourth of July.

They’re back on the road now, heading north again and Sam is stretched out in his seat, limbs splayed everywhere. The sun’s pouring in through his window, catching on the strip of exposed skin that’s taunting Dean between the hem of his shirt and the band of his boxers that are poking above the top of his jeans. Dean’s eyes keep drifting back to it and he’s almost run them into a ditch about three times now.

“So what were you doing back there, anyway?” Sam asks suddenly. His eyes are closed, face turned into the sun.

“Back where?” Dean asks, fingers tapping to the beat of the Styx song coming out from his speakers.

“The gas station. Where were you going?”

“Told you,” Dean shrugs. “Wasn’t going anywhere.”

“Everyone’s going somewhere,” Sam says, but it’s so quiet that Dean thinks maybe he wasn’t meant to hear it. There’s a pause before Sam speaks up again with another question. “Where were you coming from, then?”

Dean laughs a little. “College. Just, uh… wasn’t for me, I guess.”

Sam makes a noise in the back of his throat that Dean assumes is agreement before falling back into silence. Dean bites into his bottom lip, chews on it for a minute before his tongue gets the better of him.

“What about you?”

“What about me what?” Sam’s eyes are still closed but the corners of his mouth are twisted up a bit, so Dean pushes on.

“How’d you come to be stranded out in the middle of nowhere?”

Sam shifts, slipping down more in his seat so his shirt catches and lifts up higher, exposing more golden skin and a light trail of hair that Dean want to touch. He doesn’t touch.

“Had a plan. Chickened out. Decided I’d had enough of the truck driver who took me across the Cali border asking me to blow him while he drove, so I got out.”

Dean nearly chokes on his own spit. Sam’s tilting his head towards Dean now though, creaking one eye open to meet Dean’s stare. He’s smiling. “Then you came along.”

“Then I came along,” Dean says robotically, dragging his eyes back to the road. He’s feeling sick again just thinking about it, imagining some fat fuck pawing at Sam, grinning with cigarette-stained teeth as he tells Sam just how he can pay him back for the free lift. His head swims dangerously and it’s a good thing there’s a lull in oncoming traffic because Dean may have drifted a bit over the double yellow before correcting himself.

“I didn’t do it,” Sam points out, both eyes open now. Dean glances at him before looking away, wondering why he felt the need to tell that to Dean. “Just so you know.”

Dean’s hands tighten imperceptibly on the wheel. “Why?”

Sam’s quiet now, pushing himself upright in his seat as he thinks. Finally, he looks up again. “I don’t know.”

Christ, this kid.

“Okay,” Dean says, because what else is there to say?

“I’d only do it if I wanted to,” Sam continues, still staring at Dean.

Dean feels his blood temperature crank up a few notches, flowing faster with the stuttering beat of his heart against his ribcage. His skin prickles and he feels like there’s someone holding a huge magnifying glass over him, watching. Waiting.

“Okay,” Dean repeats, his voice catching a bit. He has a feeling this is going to go somewhere if he doesn’t put a stop to it soon, so he latches onto the first thing he sees and jumps on it. “You ever been to Vegas?”

The sign promoting Sunset Boulevard and the MGM Grand blows by, Sam’s head turning to catch it before looking back at Dean with a smile that nearly blinds him.

“Seriously?”

Dean shrugs, waits for his throat to stop feeling so tight before replying. “Unless you got somewhere to be.”

“No,” Sam answers quickly, then winces as if regretting agreeing too fast. Dean bites back a smile. “I don’t.”

“Okay, then. Next stop: Vegas,” Dean announces, cranking the volume and pushing his foot to the floor, a grin breaking across his face when he hears Sam’s delighted whoop.

They arrive within the hour, stopping by a fast food place for lunch. What makes Dean happiest is that Sam’s stopped thanking him for every little thing, just accepted that Dean wants to do this and isn’t expecting anything out of it. Once they really get into the heart of the city is where the fun begins. Sam’s pressed against the windows to gaze up at the skyscrapers and hotels lining the streets, mouth open at the spinning signs and blazing lights, even despite it being daytime. They manage to find street parking a few blocks from Sunset Boulevard and climb out of the car, meandering around until they make it onto the strip.

From there, they just do their best to get lost in the crowd. Oncoming shoulders bump Dean, and usually he’d be annoyed, but they’re nudging him closer to Sam and Sam’s being nudged closer to him and Dean can feel the back of his hand brush Sam’s, so he decides he can live with it. They stop into weird shops that smell like potpourri and sage, candy stores where the girl behind the cash stared at Dean and tried to deep throat the lollipop she was sucking on—Sam pulled him outta there pretty quick—and just down the road, Sam tries to coax Dean into a sex shop that advertises XXX videos and the latest and greatest vibrator, but Dean grabs him by the ear and yanks him down the sidewalk, blushing furiously.

They walk by the classic Vegas pit stops, gawking up at casinos and hotels alike, and Dean can tell that Sam’s feeling bitter that he isn’t old enough to get in just yet. After a bit of prying, Dean discovers he’s actually seventeen, a year younger than Dean thought, and he lets that knowledge spin around in his head before looping an arm over Sam’s shoulders to turn them around. They’re exhausted by the time they get back to the car, the afternoon sun beating hot on the backs of their necks as they clamber into the car, loose-limbed.

“Isn’t there a, uh, Ferris wheel or somethin’ around here that you can see the whole city from?” Dean pants, mopping his face off with the front of his shirt.

Sam nods, equally winded but telling Dean he might’ve seen it back when they first drove in. So they backpedal, drive up and down the crowded streets until they’re hopelessly lost and Dean has to pull into a gas station to ask for directions, grumbling the entire time.

Eventually they make it, pulling into the crowded lot before finding and joining a stream of people who seem to be going the same way they are. As they get closer to the enormous wheel that towers above their heads, Dean feels that balloon in his chest that’s been slowly filling all day with every smile and every laugh Sam’s sent his way grow even bigger when he watches Sam race ahead to the ticket booth line, bouncing on his heels as he waves Dean forward with a flail of gangly arms. This fuckin’ kid.

It’s a half hour wait to get the tickets and another hour until they even get close to the front of the one that puts them on the wheel itself. Sam’s practically vibrating next to Dean in anticipation, can’t stop looking up at the array of brightly colored lights strung along the spokes of the wheel and decorating each pod.

They’re in the next group to get called onto the High Roller, about thirty or forty of them being ushered into the capsule as it rotates down to their level, and then they’re off. Dean’s never been a particularly huge fan of heights but this is one exception he can make. For one, the view as they slowly rise up and up and up is incredible, the windows on every side of their pod giving an amazing panorama view of the world below. It isn’t long until the people look like ants and they can see the long stretch of Nevada desert spreading out in the distance. As the sun begins its descent to the horizon, they watch the Las Vegas nightlife spring up below. It’s both breathtaking and intimidating, watching the world fade away to miniature while you ascend towards the sky, and Dean’s left kind of speechless.

“Was this your first time in a Ferris wheel?”

Sam’s voice is so close to Dean’s ear that he jumps, hadn’t even realized they were both so close together where he’d been leaning on the railing. Sam’s shoulder is pressed to his and his body is tilting towards Dean, his hand nearly overlapping Dean’s where it’s gripping the metal.

“I dunno,” Dean admits, turning his gaze back to the ground below. “I probably went on one as a kid with my mom or something, but I don’t remember it.”

“I went when I was younger. Probably six or something?” Sam says, his voice echoing with an emotion Dean can’t place. He just knows it makes him sound sad. “With my dad. Took me on the wheel and I bawled my eyes out the entire time. Haven’t been on one since.”

The corner of Dean’s mouth lifts. Sam feels comfortable enough with him to share a piece of himself, of his past with Dean. “Well, this is definitely better than some rickety carnival crap, that’s for sure.”

“You’re not wrong.”

They both stand there in silence, just taking everything in before Sam wanders off to another side of the pod for a different view. Dean stays where he is, folding his arms across each other to rest his chin on them. He listens to the hum of the wheel’s engines turning, the soft chatter of the other occupants, the small cries of delight that occasionally arise. It’s peaceful, calm.

A hand brushes down Dean’s back, feather-light. He stands and turns, expecting it to be some mom and her kid asking if he minds scooting just a bit further down. Instead, he ends up spinning into Sam’s arms, which are now bracketing his body, one on either side of Dean and holding tight to the railing. Dean’s mind, sluggish and warm from the leisure of the ride and the landscape around them, is really struggling to catch up here, can’t make his tongue respond when Sam leans in and whispers, “I’m tired of waiting,” before kissing Dean right where they stand.

His mouth is smooth and soft, fitting perfectly against Dean’s for the few moments both of them are connected. Dean can smell Sam, the bite of his spiced deodorant, his skin, all of it blanketing him because of their proximity, because of the way Sam’s making sure not a single inch is separating the fronts of their bodies. Sam pulls back from their kiss and lets out a little huff before tilting his head and coming back at a different angle, capturing Dean’s lips again in a second kiss that’s more insistent, begging Dean to do something more than stand there when he drags his tongue alone Dean’s bottom lip. His brain finishes reconnecting, neurons booting up and firing and finally telling Dean they’re in goddamn _public_. Dean’s hand finds its way to Sam’s chest, pushing him back far enough that their mouths separate with a soft noise.

There’s a brief flash of fear in Sam’s eyes, clearly wondering if he’s been reading everything wrong and what if he just fucked this all up, but after watching Dean’s gaze fall to either side of him, Sam seems to understand, the fear flickering away. He steps back, stretches his arms overhead and starts casually talking about the goddamn weather, a real life cliché. Dean tries not to think about how endearing that is until they’re off the wheel.

::..::

In-N-Out is for dinner according to Sam, who said, “What the fuck kind of rock did you live under in California for you to have never tried In-N-Out?”. So now they’re seated at a booth table by the window, digging into burgers and a basket of fries so good that they both moan. The whole kissing thing hasn’t been brought up again. Sam’s been Sam, acting as if nothing even happened, which left Dean a little shell-shocked until he got his ass back in gear to try and get back to some sense of normalcy. Food is the epitome of normal.

“Tohl yoo,” Sam says, spraying Dean with a bit of his burger.

“I only speak English, compadre.”

Sam rolls his eyes and swallows. Dean tracks the way his throat moves and tries to remember how to chew his food.

“ _Told you_ ,” Sam says again, eyeing Dean’s nearly finished meal. “Good, right?”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re a regular restaurant connoisseur,” Dean relents, waving a ketchup-covered fry at Sam before shoving it in his mouth.

“You’re welcome,” Sam snorts, sipping his whiskey and Coke, the whiskey a courtesy of the flask in Dean’s back pocket.

“Y’know, I should probably stop giving you alcohol. You being seventeen and all,” Dean says conversationally just to be a shit, smirking when Sam throws him the annoyed look he was waiting for.

“Right, I’m sure you never drank before you were legal.” Sam rolls his eyes. Dean noticed Sam does that a lot whenever he talks.

“Never!” Dean mock-gasps, chuckling before munching on another fry.

“Seventeen’s not that young,” Sam continues, picking at the bun of his burger, his eyes now downcast. “Besides, it’s my birthday soon anyway.”

“Widdle Sammy,” Dean teases, leaning forward over the table as he makes his voice babyish and mocking. “Widdle seventeen year old Sammy.”

Sam’s jaw clenches a bit and he rolls his shoulders before grabbing a fry. He leans forward, elbows on the table as he meets Dean’s eyes. There’s a challenge in the green of his irises, that stubborn streak Dean’s become so familiar with making a play yet again. Sam taps the fry against his mouth a few times before smiling at Dean, this curious little thing.

“Seventeen’s old enough for plenty of things.” Sam’s tone is a little too casual, his eyes holding Dean’s a little too hard. Then he opens his mouth, just barely parts them open in a little ‘o’ before using his thumb and forefinger to slide the fry into his mouth in one smooth push.

Just like that, Dean is hard, his head spinning from how fast all of the blood in his body rushed south. He has to grab the lip of the table to stop from falling over, holy _shit_ , this kid is trying to kill him.

“Enough with the goddamn phallic symbols, you little shit,” Dean hisses, half hunching forward to berate Sam, half to shield his current predicament from unfriendly gazes.

There’s a twinkle in Sam’s eyes that Dean doesn’t like the look of, not in the least. He finds out why not even two seconds later.

“What?” Sam asks at the top of his voice, just a smidgen below a yell. “What’s a phallic symbol?”

Dean can literally hear every head in the place turn their way. He covers his face with his hands and mutters, “I fucking hate you,” to which Sam starts laughing.

Dean sees movement out of the corner of his eye, a manager or something in uniform that looks extremely perturbed. He’s out of the booth faster than he thought his jelly legs could move, making sure to grab a handful of fries before hightailing it out of there, Sam not far behind. They hit the car running, throwing themselves in their respective seats and locking the doors just to be safe. Sam’s wheezing out laughter but Dean’s still semi-pissed so he gives Sam’s upper arm two hard punches in retaliation.

“Fuckin’ shit, you are.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sam waves him away, still giggling a bit as his fingers drift to the spot where Dean hit him. Something zings up Dean’s stomach and into his spine, freezing him in his seat as he watches Sam’s eyes flutter shut when his fingertips dig in, as if he… as if he likes it. Dean’s earlier issue becomes a problem once again, his dick chubbing up just from the sight of Sam’s mouth parting open in response to the pain, from getting _turned on_ by it.

His breaths coming a little bit faster now, Sam’s eyes are suddenly open again, fixing Dean with a dark look that makes his lungs feel like they’re folding in on themselves. The wrong part of the house of cards has been touched and now it’s all coming down.

“Drive,” Sam says, his voice sounding hoarse and used, producing too many images for Dean’s brain to handle at one time. But damn, Dean doesn’t need to be told twice.

::..::

If he was paying attention to his moral compass, Dean might have taken a moment to think about how this was a bad idea. If he gave a shit about anything more than the way his pants are too fucking tight over his dick, Dean would have probably tried to be more subtle about the way he entered the motel office and demanded a single king, right the fuck now, thanks.

Problem is that none of this was his immediate concern. Nothing was except for the boy standing beside his car, bag in hand, looking flushed and impatient. They moved too fast, tripping over nothing as they tried to find the room on the tag attached to the key, of course it was the one farthest from the office, longest goddamn walk of Dean’s life. Key finally shoved in the door and Dean can feel Sam draped against his back, Sam’s lips on his neck, the wet gust of Sam’s breath heating Dean’s skin, making his hands shake and fumble with opening the door. Sam’s talking the whole time, insistent and low, “Dean, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” and Dean’s swearing, “Fucking shit, Sam,” then the door’s open and they’re in.

Sam’s bag hits the floor at the same time Dean’s keys hit the bedside table, then they’re on each other, grabbing handfuls anywhere they can reach, shirts and hair in death grips as their mouths finally collide.

Sam may be taller but Dean’s got Sam’s hair between his fingers and uses it to pull him down, pull him in, tilt him at just the right angle so Dean’s tongue can finally get behind his teeth. It’s going too fast, the rational part of Dean knows this, but that section of his brain has turned to liquid at the first moan that Sam feeds into Dean’s mouth. He needs more, more sounds, more _Sam_ , and the next thing Dean knows, he’s slamming Sam into the nearest wall, both of them shaking from the impact.

“Dean,” Sam pants into his mouth, palms clamped on his cheeks to pull him into another kiss, so deep and dirty that Dean feels his bone marrow start to decay.

“Yeah, Sammy,” he manages to murmur once Sam’s given up attacking his mouth. “Yeah, I’ve got you.”

Sam makes a noise then, his head falling back to thump against the wall, opening up the canvas of his neck. Dean dives in, latches his teeth around the skin on the side of Sam’s throat and sucks hard. He can feel the spot between his lips heat up as the blood rushes to the surface, runs his tongue over it and sucks again. Sam’s letting out these beautiful hitching breaths, music to Dean’s ears, and his hips are working in response, jerking up and digging in to grind against Dean’s where he’s lined them up just right. One of Dean’s hands drop to Sam’s hip, gripping hard at the sharp wing of bone, praying to God that it leaves an imprint on his palm for the rest of his life. He moves to another spot on Sam’s neck, then another, leaves a trail of his marks with nips and sucks until Sam is writhing against Dean’s body.

“Please, Dean, please, fuck—” Sam’s nearly sobbing, his hands clawing at Dean’s shoulders, and Dean shivers, rolling his hips up so his cock catches on the hard line of Sam’s and they both groan.

“What?” Dean mumbles down Sam’s throat, too fascinated by the smooth lines of his neck to even try to pull away. “What do you want?”

“You, God, touch me, please touch me,” Sam begs, and that’s good enough for Dean. He bends his knees, drops his hands to get under the backs of Sam’s thighs and lifts him up right onto his hips. Sam lets out a choked noise, arms flinging around Dean’s neck until his back hits the mattress and jars them loose again.

It’s all hands then, pushing Sam up so he can get his head on a pillow and from there, Dean has no semblance of control where his fingers go. It’s like they’ve been deprived, crawling down Sam’s torso and then shoving back up to push Sam’s shirt out of the way to reveal the miles of brown skin that hasn’t left Dean’s thoughts since he first saw the kid. The bed creaks slightly when Dean gets on the bed too, legs on either side of Sam’s hips as his palms run down Sam’s ribcage, relishing the heat pouring off his body. His mouth follows, leaning down to breathe over one of Sam’s nipples before his teeth latch onto it and give it a little pull. Sam bucks, his hands flying to the back of Dean’s head, scrabbling to get purchase in the short strands of his hair as he pants and moans.

Dean’s trying not to think about how his hands keep shaking, his senses overloaded by how responsive Sam is, how good he tastes, how much Dean wants. It’s making it hard to breathe, but who needs air anyway, Dean would rather suffocate himself in Sam’s skin than have to leave it.

He can feel Sam’s thighs trembling, reminding him of what drew him to Sam in the first place, and he relinquishes the nub between his teeth in favor of kissing his way down Sam’s chest, scooting back as he goes so he can get lower and lower until he feels the coarse trail of hair against his lips. Baring his teeth, Dean lightly scrapes downwards until he feels rough denim against his chin, Sam’s back arching up to meet him.

Dean breathes out a laugh, flicking his eyes up. “You’re a squirmy little thing, ain’tcha?”

Lust has blown Sam’s pupils wide open and dappled his cheeks in red. He looks wrecked and Dean hasn’t even gotten started, his cock twitching in his jeans just from watching the way Sam’s mouth drops open when Dean bites at the flare of his hipbone.

“Maybe—” Sam lets out a huff, his fingers tightening in Dean’s hair and pulling up. “Maybe if you stopped fuckin’ teasing me—”

Dean sits up, pulling his head away from Sam’s grip with another chuckle, tugging at Sam’s belt loops. “Get ‘em off.”

It’s almost comical to watch how fast Sam sits up, fumbling to lift his hips and shove his pants down and off. The moment they’re free of his ankles, Dean grabs Sam’s calves and pushes at them, wanting to get up between them and feel them wrap around his waist, the darkest thing from Dean’s dreams. He can’t help the groan that rattles out of his chest when Sam drops his legs open automatically, making a space just for him.

“Do you have any idea,” Dean starts, crouching down so he can nose along Sam’s inner thigh up to the bend of his knee. “How much I’ve thought about these fuckin’ legs?”

Sam whimpers, fisting his hands in the sheets. Dean relishes making his way back up Sam’s thigh, the skin on the inside of his leg almost baby smooth, the perfect path for his lips.

“How often I imagined how pretty you’d look with them spread open just like this?”

“Dean,” Sam chokes out when Dean mouths over his clothed dick, kitten-licking at the damp spot on his briefs.

“‘S okay, Sammy, I gotcha,” Dean soothes, kissing Sam’s stomach before slipping his fingers under the band of his underwear, pulling them down and off of Sam’s legs with one yank.

Sitting back on his heels, Dean takes in every inch of Sam from the beautiful flush of his cheeks, to the sweat building on his neck and collarbones and the dusky peaks of his nipples. His breath catches when his eyes finally land on Sam’s dick, leaking pre-come from the slit onto his stomach. The head is pink, the same shade as Sam’s bitten and used mouth, and the very thought of it sending tingles down Dean’s spine to pool low in his belly. Every single part of Sam’s body deserves to be treasured, lavished with Dean’s fingers and lips until Sam doesn’t know what way is up.

Skimming his palms up Sam’s sides, Dean gently lowers himself until he’s draped over Sam’s body, Sam completely nude and Dean still fully clothed. Sam immediately tells Dean he thinks that’s all kinds of wrong by pulling at Dean’s shirt hard enough that he thinks it might rip. Lifting his arms, Dean lets Sam get it off him and watches as he tosses it aside before planting his hands on Dean’s chest, mapping it with his fingers.

“You’re so fucking unreal,” Sam breathes, brows furrowing as he follows the lines of Dean’s pecs down to his stomach and back up again. “Jesus, Dean, you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Shaking his head, Dean ducks down until his face is buried in the crook of Sam’s shoulder. “Don’t,” Dean says into Sam’s sweat-slick skin. “Just let me take care of you.”

Sam’s entire body jerks the moment Dean wraps a hand around his dick and uses his palm to twist around the head and down until it’s slick with pre-come and easier to pump. Broken mewls leave Sam’s mouth in rapid succession, his legs tensing and sliding up and down, unable to stop from squirming as Dean jerks him harder and faster, pulling him closer and closer to the edge until he’s gasping, “Stop stop stop, I’m gonna come, don’t—”. Instead of doing what he asked, Dean slips back and drops his head to take Sam’s cock into his mouth, pushing down as far as his throat can take it. Sam comes with a shout, bucking up into Dean’s mouth and cussing loudly as his hand grabs onto the back of Dean’s head. Dean works him through it, squeezes and pulls and swallows it all, the taste of Sam’s come coating his tongue, making his dick twitch in his pants, reminding him that he really needs to get his fucking pants off.

Sam’s cock has just barely slipped out of Dean’s mouth when he’s suddenly hauled up and into a waiting pair of lips that attack him with vigor. Sam kisses him hard, shoving his tongue deep into Dean’s mouth, swirling it around his cheeks and along the roof of his mouth before pulling back to audibly swallow. That just about sends Dean over the edge, knowing Sam can taste himself, _wanted_ to taste himself, practically ate it off of Dean’s tongue.

“Take your pants off already,” Sam demands, fingers already crawling to the zipper of Dean’s jeans. “And get your dick out.”

“Jesus, Sam,” Dean groans, hips twitching up into the warmth of Sam’s palms as they pull open his button and tug at his belt loops. He nearly falls off the bed trying to kick them off, manages to finally stand up and step out of both them and his boxers. Sam’s moved too, stooping over his bag for a moment before climbing back onto the sheets, tossing two things in Dean’s direction.

The foil condom packet and KY tube take a moment to register in Dean’s brain, to finally click in that they’re about to do this. After this, there’s no going back. Dean looks up and meets Sam’s eyes, his breath rushing out of his lungs. He’s never seen Sam look more determined or more certain of anything in the time they’ve known each other. Dean would be lying if he said it hadn’t ever crossed his mind, because it did the moment Dean first laid eyes on this kid and he’s thought about it nearly every half hour since. He wants this, wants Sam, wants to feel how tight he is and hear him moan into Dean’s ear as he pushes in and _fuck_ , okay, yeah, this is happening.

“On your back,” Dean says, picking up the packet. He tears it open and rolls the condom on, hissing in relief as he finally gets his hand on his dick. When he looks up to see if Sam’s complied, another noise gets strangled in the back of his throat.

Sam listened, of course he did, is lying flat on his back with a pillow propped under his ass so his hips are tilted up at the perfect angle, his legs splayed open obscenely wide. Dean doesn’t even remember moving; the next thing he knows, his hands are on Sam’s thighs, stroking gently as he settles on the bed. His thumbs trace their own path down, down, down, past Sam’s balls to the space between his cheeks, seeking. Finding.

Moaning softly, Dean turns his face into the crease of Sam’s knee that’s bent just beside his face. “Fuck, Sam. _Fuck_.”

He can feel the tight whorl of muscle against the pad of his right thumb, a hot little hole that Dean is about to breach, to explore with his fingers and his dick and the very thought of it makes him groan again.

“Dean,” Sam says, his voice sounding unusually high. “I swear to God, if you don’t get your cock in my ass in the next minute—”

“Dude,” Dean bites out, his eyes squeezing shut against Sam’s slutty words. “You can’t just—”

“Yes I can, now will you hurry u—”

While Sam was bitching, Dean had flipped off the cap of the lube and slicked his first two fingers up, just so he could shove the first one in Sam’s ass as he complained. It works as well as he hoped it would, breaking Sam off mid-sentence to let out a gasp before it turns into something more needy. Dean wants to take his time, to curl and spread and fill Sam with his fingers until he cries, but his blood already feels too hot in his veins and Sam is now fucking himself down on Dean’s finger and begging for another and he knows neither of them are going to last long. Sam’s half hard again already just from being fingered and Dean has to close his eyes to try and keep from being overwhelmed.

Dean eases in a second finger, scissoring and spreading Sam as quickly as he can without hurting him, but Sam doesn’t seem to care, writhing and swearing and begging for Dean’s cock in a way that should definitely be illegal. Still, Dean refuses to fuck him until he’s certain Sam’s prepped enough, hunching forward to kiss Sam with a tangle of tongues, hoping that’ll be distraction enough.

“I’m good, I’m good.” Sam’s biting at Dean’s lips now, squirming and dragging his sweaty chest against Dean’s so their nipples catch and drag. It’s as if he knows every single way to fuck Dean right up. “I promise, I’m good, Dean, just fuck me already.”

Dean grunts, dropping his forehead to Sam’s shoulder so he can look down between their bodies. Sam got fully hard with three fingers up his ass, his cock curving up on his stomach again, dripping wet at the head. Sucking in a breath, Dean pulls his fingers out of the tight heat, trying not to cry when he feels Sam’s hole grip around his knuckles, trying to keep him in. That’s about to be wrapped around his dick, holy fucking shit.

Sam shifts a bit on the pillow underneath him, tilting his hips up and spreading his legs even wider as he offers himself up, so ready and wanting that Dean nearly drools.

Gathering himself, Dean lets out a whisper on his next exhale, “Okay”, fights to keep his fingers from trembling as he wraps them around his dick and guides it down to Sam’s hole. He can hear Sam’s breath catch and then he’s pushing in, feeding his dick into mind-numbing tightness and heat.

Buzzing fills Dean’s ears, drowning him in white noise as he eases in painfully slow, seconds becoming hours that spill from invisible hourglasses until Dean’s hips finally meet the backs of Sam’s thighs. Sam is panting harshly, his face flushed and strained and shiny with sweat, the prettiest thing Dean’s ever seen. Instinct screams at Dean to move, to fuck in and out and feel the catch and release of this incredible pressure on his cock until he blacks out, but it’s Sam and despite all the begging, Dean’s not exactly small and he needs time, give him time.

Dean lowers himself down until they’re chest to chest again, turning his face into Sam’s neck to place a sloppy kiss there before he starts mumbling, “Doin’ so good, Sam, so so good, just relax, it’s okay”, and he hears Sam make a small noise of agreement. He can feel Sam untensing, letting himself get used to the intrusion.

It’s another minute of sharp breaths and hands clenching and unclenching on Dean’s shoulder before Sam’s hips give a tiny buck.

“Go,” Sam breathes.

Who knew a two-syllable word could set off a cacophony of fireworks in Dean’s body, burning bright and hot enough to make it feel like his bones are being superheated. Reaching down, Dean gets both arms under Sam’s knees and lifts them up over his shoulders, nearly bending Sam in half. The movement jostles them in such a way that Sam yelps then groans and wiggles his ass back and forth on Dean’s dick.

There, he’s gotta hit there, _prostate_ , his mind helpfully supplies, he’s gotta turn Sam into an absolute wreck of a human being, loose-limbed and fucked out, and he’s gonna start now.

With his past hookups, Dean would take his time to ease them into it, make sure they’re comfortable and go gentle, slow. There’s no room for gentle when Sam’s folded in half under Dean’s body and has his arms looped around Dean’s neck. There’s no room for slow when Sam’s whispering, “Fuck me stupid,” in his ear.

So he does. Dean fucks Sam stupid, his hips pistoning into the kid so hard that the breath is knocked out of him. Sam keeps clenching around his cock, squeezing so tight that Dean’s rhythm stutters sometimes, but he never falters in his punishing pace. The sounds of flesh meeting flesh fill the room, obscenely loud in Dean’s ears but oddly arousing at the same time, this auditory evidence that it’s finally happening, Dean fucking Sam, Sam taking his dick like a champ, moaning like a pornstar and looking like a goddamn model the entire time.

Dean does his best to angle his hips just right, shifting with his thrusts until he hears the surprised “Oh!” leave Sam’s mouth and he knows he’s hit the goldmine. Dean bears down on him then, capturing Sam’s mouth in a wet kiss as he drives his cock into Sam relentlessly, over and over and over to punch those pretty little noises out of his throat until Sam bites down on Dean’s bottom lip and comes hard, his cock completely untouched. He paints both of their chests with thick white stripes, their skin catching and sticking together deliciously as they slide against each other. The rhythmic clench and unclench of Sam’s hole is what lets Dean follow, spilling into the condom with short bursts that match his thrusts until they’re both exhausted, dirty and overly sensitive.

Sucking in a huge gulp of air, Dean gently pulls out so he can unfold Sam back down to the mattress and roll off, the humid air in the room settling on his sweaty face. Sam’s left speechless, apparently, only able to wheeze out some kind of awestruck noise before Dean’s rolling back over to kiss it out of his mouth. They hover there a moment, lips brushing, just giving and taking hot breaths as their eyes lock and hold, neither of them being the first to look away.

“Fuck,” Sam finally says, his voice raw and gravelly.

“Fuck,” Dean agrees, ducking in to steal one last kiss before flopping back onto his pillow.

Looking over, he can see Sam’s eyes fluttering shut, exhaustion plain as day on his flushed face, so he takes it upon himself to stand and head to the bathroom first, tying off the condom and tossing it before wetting one of the washcloths. He wipes Sam down gingerly, making slow swipes down his chest and over his dick until he’s completely clean. He takes care of himself next before abandoning the washcloth on the floor of the bathroom and crawling back into bed beside Sam.

Dean was planning to ask Sam if he was okay but the kid’s already asleep, mouth ajar and hair sticking up everywhere. Smiling and shaking his head, Dean reaches down to ease the pillow out from under Sam’s limp body, tossing it to the floor before closing his eyes himself. There’s a war going on inside of him, emotions that are begging to ruin this moment for him, but sleep comes on too fast and drowns them all away.

::..::

“I was going to find my brother.”

Dean looks up from stirring his coffee, meeting Sam’s eyes.

“What?”

They’re in a diner, sharing the morning-after over two breakfast specials, coffee, and Dean’s residual guilt that had slammed into him full force after waking up the next morning to Sam blowing him. It all rose up inside him unbidden, tainting him black and wringing his muscles dry with fear; fear of hurting Sam, of taking advantage of him, of making him think this was the only way he can pay Dean back for everything when that was the furthest thing from his mind. Now they’re here in their booth and Sam’s just broken the uncomfortable silence that’s blanketed them since they stepped through the doors.

“When you found me,” Sam clarifies, spearing his sausage link with his fork tines. “I was going to find my brother.”

“Oh,” Dean says, leaning back a bit to digest this. A new slew of questions crawl their way to the front of his mind, but it’s as if Sam knows.

“He didn’t know I was coming. I ditched my dad, hitchhiked my way from home, made it this far before getting cold fuckin’ feet and freaking out. I was just trying to figure out how I was gonna get back home and walk back into that house again when you came along, so…” Sam gnaws at his lip, eyes still downcast.

“Your dad was mad?” Dean ventures cautiously, gauging Sam’s reaction. What he didn’t expect was for Sam to bark out a cold laugh, his face tightening with a wry smile before nodding.

“Fucking livid. I kind of deserved it, though. I was going through some of his old stuff in the attic, looking for something to use in a school project or whatever when I found these old books. Journals, really, dating back over two decades. That’s how I found out about the real reason behind my parents’ divorce that happened when I was still a baby, and just as a cherry on top, I’ve got an older brother out there that I’ve never met, never even heard of.” Sam’s voice is low and angry, his eyes fixed on his fork that is stabbing into chunks of scrambled eggs on his plate. “What the fuck kind of parent do you have to be to hide something like that from your kid?”

“...Maybe there’s a reason—” Dean starts, and immediately knows it was the wrong thing to say.

“There isn’t!” Sam shouts, throw his hands into the air. “That’s just it, Dean! No fucking reason, just a joint decision on both of their parts to stay the fuck out of each other’s lives. They took my goddamn _brother_ from me. Can you even begin to imagine how that feels?”

“I’m sorry,” Dean shushes him, grimacing at the waitress who is shooting them weird looks before leaning forward to touch Sam’s wrist with his fingers. “I’m sorry, Sam, okay? No, no I can’t. What they did was wrong.” He waits for Sam’s breath to go from choppy back to some sense of normalcy before continuing. “So how did you find out where or even who he was? Your brother?”

Sam shrugs and starts picking at his food again. He doesn’t pull away from where Dean is touching him, so Dean leaves his hand where it is.

“Well, I figured out I had one from the journals because the first one started on the day my brother was born. I don’t know his name though. Any entry in any of the journals that mentioned his name were blacked out, like he couldn’t even stand to see my brother’s name. Then I found my mom’s number in the back of one of the books. It took me three weeks but I finally got the balls to call her from a payphone and pretended I was taking a survey, asked if there were any young males in the household I could speak to. She was nice. Apologized and told me her son was away at college. _Stanford_. I couldn’t fucking believe it.” Sam shakes his head. “My older brother was going to my dream school and my mother had no idea she was speaking to her youngest son. It was like the world’s biggest joke.”

“Wait. Stanford?” Dean croaks, his mind starting to spin. What are the chances that Sam’s brother was at his school, well, ex-school, this entire time?

Sam gave him an odd look. “Yeah. Why?”

It’s then that Dean is reminded just how little they both know about each other. They never talked about shit like school or family; it was all whatever was right in front of them. For the past two days, they had been living in the moment, but this was the cost.

“I-I, uh, used to go to Stanford,” Dean finally admits, looking away prematurely to avoid the look of inevitable disappointment in Sam’s eyes when he goes on, “‘Til I dropped out.”

Sam’s fork hits the plate with a clatter. “You _went there_?”

Dean rubs the back of his head and stares out the window.

“Is… Is that where you were coming from?” Sam asks, his tone a lot softer now, like he can sense this is a precarious subject.

“Yeah,” Dean grunts, dropping his hands so he can start fiddling with his napkin. “Just wasn’t built for college, I guess. Or most anything in my life, honestly. Just another thing to add to my long list of fuck-ups.”

Sam bites his lip. He looks like he wants to try to be nice and say something, but he refrains. He probably knows that all it’ll sound like to Dean is pity, which Dean would rather choke himself than get any of that shit.

Dean clears his throat and takes a sip of coffee. “Anyways. Your brother. Hell, maybe I know the guy.”

Sam’s face brightens significantly, hope rolling off him in waves and reverting him into a little kid with the excitement brewing beneath his skin. “You think?”

Dean shrugs. “It’s a small world. You never know.”

Sam nods jerkily, his hands twisting together on the table, food completely forgotten now. “I mean, I don’t have his first name because that was all scratched out, but he could be going by my dad’s last name. Winchester.”

A boulder tumbles out of Dean’s heart and plummets to his stomach, knocking the air out of his lungs on the way down.

Sam’s voice has become a bit more fuzzy, a bit more distorted, but he’s still talking, completely oblivious. “I don’t know if he’d be using my dad’s surname, though, so it may be our mom’s, which is Campbell.”

This is a joke.

“It’s probably a long shot but that’s all I had going into it, so you can see why I pussied out.”

This has to be a fucking joke.

“...Dean? Are you okay?”

The room has tilted onto its side. Dean feels sick. He’s going to throw up.

“You… You look green. Dean, are you okay?”

He’s about to throw up, but his fingers still have enough function in them to pull out his wallet and start fumbling through the cards.

“Your mom’s name.” Dean rasps, struggling to keep his gaze focused on Sam when everything’s starting to spin. “Was it Mary?”

Sam’s eyes widen, his mouth falling open in shock. “Holy shit. You know him!”

A vicious throbbing has taken root in Dean’s temples, aching with every too-fast beat of his heart. He wants to disappear, to melt down into his seat and never resurface again. He wants to throw up and he wants to punch something, break every fucking bone in his arm, but it still wouldn’t be enough.

Dean finally finds what he was looking for, his thumb sliding the card out of his wallet. He slaps his driver’s license down on the table, his hand covering it as he closes his eyes and tries to remember how to breathe.

“Dean?” comes the nervous laugh. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

Dean shoves his arm forward, his i.d. sticking to the clammy sweat lining his palm before dropping away once Dean pulls his arm back again. This is death row and that card is his execution.

“What’re you… What’s this?” Sam leans forward. Dean knows when he’s read it by the way his body sways back and stiffens up. Knows Sam’s now seen his full name, Dean fuckin’ Winchester, everybody, take your goddamn bow.

“But—”

Dean doesn’t think he can stand to hear excuses, not when the truth is right in front of them. There’s nothing more than he can say. He has a flesh and blood brother, a kid brother, and last night, he fucked him until they both passed out. A laugh starts to bubble up Dean’s throat, this twisted thing that has no place here, but his heart is beating too fast and his fingers are shaking and his stomach’s still churning and he knows what his brother’s come tastes like and it’s all just a little bit like the universe had been waiting with bated breath to show him there was still one more thing in life that he could totally screw up.

Sam looks about as sick as Dean’s feeling. “Maybe it’s not—” _you_. Maybe it’s another Winchester who has another mom with his mother’s exact same name.

Well. Their mom now.

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Oh, God,” Sam whispers in horror, his face draining of all blood to leave him ghostly white. Dean wishes he could help, wishes he could do something other than stare at his i.d. on the table and wish this whole thing had never happened. Sam’s out of the booth now, stumbling his way to the bathroom.

Dean’s head is splitting open so he lays it down on his crossed arms on the table and tries to breathe and not vomit on his lap.

Guess it really is a small world out there.

::..::

The silence in the car is suffocating, dripping down the back of Dean’s throat and choking off his air with how uncomfortable it is. There isn’t even music playing. They’ve been on the road for almost two hours, left the diner in a daze when Sam eventually returned to his seat and whispered, “You need to take me to the Grand Canyon.” He said he’d borrowed a phone and called his uncle Bobby, asked him to drive down from Sioux Falls to get him there, so he wanted to leave as soon as possible.

They’d be getting there shortly, their remaining time together ticking away, and still Dean couldn’t speak. He didn’t know what to say. What even is there to say after finding out something like that? What is there to say when Dean looks over at the boy in his front seat and remembers the way he looks when he’s bent in half, sweat matting his hair to his forehead and flushing his cheeks? What is there to say when Dean realizes he still wants to do it again anyway?

“Can you just…” Sam finally speaks up, his face pointed out his window. “Play some music or something?”

Dean’s fingers comply, plucking a tape out of the box on the floor and shoving it into the player. He cranks the music loud, loud enough that maybe the guitars and drums will rattle all these fucked up thoughts right out of his head. Sam looks like he’s hoping for the exact same thing.

That’s what they’re both like when Dean finally pulls them into the national park. He doesn’t turn the engine off, just lets it idle in its parking spot as he stares out the windshield and thinks about just how fucked up this all got. He misses Sam, misses talking to him, misses laughing. But this kid, his goddamn _brother_ , Dean’s sure he wants nothing to do with Dean right about now.

Sam’s picking up his bag at his feet, placing it in his lap as he fiddles with the straps. He still looks like he’s going to be sick.

“I’m gonna go,” he says, his voice thin. “I’ve got enough money to make it ‘til Bobby comes to get me, so don’t… worry about that, okay?”

Christ, the kid can read his mind. Dean opens his wallet anyway, pulls out all the cash in the main pocket and holds it out. Sam pushes his hand away, shaking his head, but Dean grabs his wrist, turns his hand over and slaps the money into Sam’s palm. It’s more than he would need to get food and anything else he needs while he waits for the next eight hours, but Dean feels a little better just knowing he’ll be secure in that time.

“That’s too much, Dean, I don’t—”

“Take it, Sam.” It’s the first thing Dean’s said since they left the diner, his voice cracking from misuse. “Just fuckin’ take it, alright?”

Sam’s fingers curl over the bills, just barely brushing Dean’s hand as he pulls it back.

“What are you going to do?” Sam asks softly, staring down at his lap.

Dean clears his throat once, twice. Looks out the window. Decides he couldn’t give less of a shit about the canyon when his little brother is about to up and walk out of his life, so he forces his eyes back to Sam’s face. He takes in the slope of Sam’s nose, the shape of his lips, how his hair flops down just so over his forehead, the color of his eyes. He soaks in every inch of Sam, committing him to memory while he still can before Sam’s gone.

“Keep driving.” Dean shrugs. “See if there’s anyone else’s lives I can royally fuck up along the way.”

Sam’s head jerks up, his face twisted with pain. “Dean—”

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Dean cuts him off, feels his heart start to wither under Sam’s intense stare. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“You seem to be forgetting that it takes two to tango,” Sam says, forcing out a laugh that makes both of them wince. He shakes his head then, still watching Dean. “We didn’t know, okay?”

“Doesn’t make it any better,” Dean croaks, finally having to look away.

Sam clenches his jaw. “So this is it, then?”

The finality behind Sam’s words are terrifying, burrowing under Dean’s skin and snagging on his every joint and muscle. He doesn’t want it to be. He doesn’t want to never see Sam again, to never hear him laugh or bitch again, to look over at the passenger seat and know that it’ll never cradle Sam’s too-long body again. He doesn’t want this to be it, but it has to be.

“It’s for the best,” Dean says, because it really is. Sam should go on to have a normal rest of his life. He doesn’t need someone like Dean, and definitely not a brother like him.

Sam’s mouth twists, hurt plain in his eyes as he nods shakily once before turning away. “Okay. I guess, uh…” _See you around_ won’t work here. “Good luck. With everything.”

Dean tries to pretend Sam’s voice isn’t choking up with tears.

“You too,” Dean says back, barely louder than a whisper but he knows Sam heard him.

Then Sam’s gone, sliding out of the seat and shutting the door behind him, the impact rocking Dean back and forth gently until the car settles again. There’s a burning hot pressure behind his eyes, eating away at that fragile place inside his heart that wants to call Sam back and tell him they’ll figure something out, just come back, dammit, but it doesn’t work that way.

The way it works is that Dean puts his car in reverse and pulls away. He stops, looks out the window to see Sam watching him, his bag slung over his shoulder and his teeth digging into his lip like he’s holding something back too. Raising a trembling hand, Dean gives Sam one last wave before putting the car into drive and stepping on the gas.

Dean can’t help but watch Sam’s still figure in the rearview mirror, becoming smaller and smaller as Dean gets farther away until he turns onto the interstate and is finally gone, nothing more than a memory.

::..::

To say the next week is hard is an understatement.

Dean drove without aim, drifting east until he hit New Orleans and fell into the bed of an incredible woman who took care of him in more ways than one, even when he stumbled in at five in the morning with more alcohol in his system than blood. She never asked, never pried, just existed with him and made him feel safe and whole right up until Dean realized this void in his chest could never really be filled. He left the next morning, leaving a note on her pillow and an apology in the form of a single rose.

From there, he went north, struck with a sudden desire to see mountains. Dean considered calling Mary, he really did, but every time he thought he had enough courage to pick up the phone, he heard Sam’s voice echoing in his head and couldn’t even punch the first number.

Halfway through the second week of his wandering and drunken stupors, Dean passed through a small town just outside of Montana. There was a carnival on, the lights casting a glow on the edge of town that drew the people in like moths to a flame. He was just driving by, on his way to nowhere when he saw the ferris wheel. Crotchety old thing, looked like it was gonna bust open at the seams any time someone new climbed on, but there it was, tall and proud and bright against the evening sky. It made Dean ache, so hard and so fast that he had to pull over, bent forward and nearly hyperventilating right there.

It was pretty clear what needed to happen from there. Dean drove through the night, couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so determined and set on a place and a time and a person. He’d never felt more certain in his life than when he was with Sam, so why would this be any different?

He thought about stopping a motel for the night, figured he should probably shower and maybe sleep for the first time in forty-eight hours, but his foot wouldn’t give up the gas pedal. And so he went on.

It wasn’t hard to figure it out. Just took stopping by the local diner to be pointed to the local bar to be pointed to the city sheriff, a kind woman named Jody Mills, who gave Dean the directions he needed. She looked a bit skeptical when he first walked in, which made Dean wonder just how fucked up he looked right about now, then decided he really could give less of a shit.

Bobby’s place was just outside the city, situated in an old car junkyard that would have made Dean itch to get up and down the rows to look at all the old models once upon a time. Now though, he just has one goal, one destination in mind for the first time Dean’s ever really known.

Dean parks in between two rows of cars, something telling him he might get shot off the property if he just rolled up to the front door like anyone’s business, then gets out on unsteady legs. He’s never felt more or less sure of a decision in his life. It’s terrifying, finally knowing what you want, what you want to fight for, and not knowing what the outcome might be. Whenever Dean’s had situations like this, he was always the first to leave. Can’t get hurt if you aren’t there to feel the pain or the disappointment or the resentment or the whatever the fuck else. But this? He’s treading in new waters too deep to see the bottom, but for the first time, Dean’s ready to drown.

His boots hit the doorstep. Dean pauses, his throat suddenly dry and his body locking up tight, screaming for him to turn and run, get back to what he knows. But he can’t.

Lifting his fist, Dean raps three times on the front door and listens as a dog inside goes nuts, barking and howling and running back and forth to alert anyone in a thirty mile radius that someone is at the door. There’s a bunch of scuffling and swearing, a tiny yelp from the dog and the slam of another door before the one in front of Dean opens wide.

Sam freezes, his mouth parted open in surprise as he registers just who is standing in front of him. It feels like champagne is sliding through Dean’s veins, making him feel light and fizzy just from laying eyes on the kid again after nearly two weeks apart, and isn’t that just codependent and fucked up?

“Hi,” Dean says, hands shoved deep into his pockets.

Sam just stares at him, still speechless. Dean doesn’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing, can’t judge what Sam’s feeling because his face is a blank slate of shock and isn’t betraying a single thing.

“Look,” Dean croaks, his fingers clenching in his pockets. “I get it if… if this really doesn’t work for you. Or if you just don’t want to, after everything that happened, I get it, I do.” Dean sucks in a sharp breath and plunges on. “But I can’t get you out of my head.”

Sam slumps against the doorframe, watching Dean oh so carefully but holding onto the door in his other hand—for resilience? In case he needs to slam it in Dean’s face?—while biting deep into his lip.

“It hasn’t been the same since you left,” Dean says, then shakes his head hard, staring at the ground as he scuffs his boots. “That’s not it. It hasn’t been the same since _I_ left _you_. And I’m sorry for that.” Dean looks up again, catching Sam’s eyes, which are wide and shiny and vibrantly green. “I’m sorry I left you behind, Sammy. You didn’t deserve that, not after everything.”

Sam remains quiet, so Dean keeps going. “I just… how this all went down? That’s not something I ever thought would happen, not in a million years. I just… I just wanted to help. But I ended up finding out I have a brother.” A little laugh escapes him then as tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He tries to blink them away, doesn’t know if he succeeds, doesn’t really care. “So even if it’s just as brothers, even if we have to pretend everything didn’t happen…” Dean swallows hard. “I want to be with you. Here, on the road, wherever home is for you, I don’t care. As long as you’re there and I’m there, I’m good. I’ll be good, Sammy. And I just… needed you to know that.”

The dog is whining from somewhere inside the house, scratching at the door it’s been locked behind. There are birds chirping somewhere in the distance and the soft sound of both Sam and Dean just breathing. Dean doesn’t know what to expect, just knows he laid himself bare and will take whatever comes his way. He doesn’t deserve a second chance here, not after this, which is why he doesn’t expect anything in the least. As long as Sam knows, that’s what he tells himself. As long as Sam knows.

Finally, Sam speaks, standing up to his full height as he looks down at Dean on the front step, something shielding the emotions in his eyes. “You want me to come with you?”

Taking a deep breath, Dean nods. “Yeah, I do.”

Sam chews at the corner of his lip and pushes away from the doorframe before walking down a step, another foot closer to Dean. He rolls his shoulders back, squaring up before really looking at Dean and holding his eyes as he asks, “What if I want both?”

Dean’s brain short-circuits for a moment. “What?”

“What if…” Sam trails off, his gaze dropping down to watch his hand as it reaches forward and curls in the front of Dean’s shirt. “What if I want what we had and a brother?” Dean can feel his heart stutter in his chest, leaving a strange tattoo on his ribs. “Would you hate me?”

All the breath leaves Dean’s lungs as he grabs Sam’s arm and tugs him down even closer until they’re nose to nose.

“Never,” Dean whispers, tilting his head just right so his lips can brush Sam’s as he speaks, smiling when he feels Sam tremble in response.

“Then yes,” Sam whispers back, his hand tugging Dean forward until their mouths meet, sealing their hearts and their futures together with a kiss that rivals even the fairy tales.

Just like that, Dean became certain that he’d found his calling, the reason why he never felt settled anywhere he had gone before. His purpose in life had been waiting on just the other side of the California border, and now everything was finally right. Sam is the one thing Dean is determined to never let down again, and by the way that Sam is wrapping his arms around his neck like an anchor, Sam believes in him, believes in Dean. That’s more than he could ever think to ask for, and finally, Dean is happy.

**Author's Note:**

> A quick note to thank some of the people closest to me who knew I was struggling to finish this fic for the deadline.
> 
> To R, J, and R; thank you for listening to me bitch and moan and then disappear for four hours only to come back and say I'd just written a porn scene. Your patience and support mean everything, and this is for you.


End file.
